


Broken Shards

by lordavon



Series: I'd Rather Hurt Than Live Without You [2]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst for days, It's Deadpool he comes back, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, POV Second Person, Peter's POV, Something like a suicide pact, Suicide Attempt, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-10-01 17:03:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20344582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordavon/pseuds/lordavon
Summary: Peter Parker's identity reveal goes very, very badly, leaving him taking desperate measures to try to salvage his relationship with Wade.





	Broken Shards

It eats away at you, pulling on your muscles, gnawing into your organs, tearing into your nerves. It chews on you like a dog with a bone, endlessly biting into you. You’re being dissolved from the inside out, strangling internally on a secret that hardly matters, until finally you cannot handle one more bite, one more tear into your skin, and you pull off the mask and let Deadpool see you. Let Wade see you. 

And it hurts because he says nothing, does nothing. He just stares, the normally expressive mask gone blank. You start babbling, apologizing, begging him to understand; there isn’t enough words in the world for what you’re trying to say. 

He pulls a gun and puts it to his head before you can stop him.

You watch his brains explode out of the side of his skull. Blood and gore drip down, spray out, and he crumples. You’ve seen him die before but not like this.

Never when it was your fault.

You stumble to the edge of the roof, glad your mask is off as you puke over the side, retching out the teeth and mouths that have been eating you for months of being his friend, his lover, his partner – you don’t know the word, you’ve never figured out the right words – you’re a photographer, not a writer - as Spiderman and as Peter. Of wanting more. Of needing more. You cough until you’re empty.

Then you sit, his blood soaking into your suit, and you wait, cradling his head in your lap, tears falling from your eyes, and you can’t seem to stop apologizing, even though he can’t hear a word you say. You just want him to understand. You didn’t mean to lie. It was an accident that you let go on too long. A secret you never should have kept, that you should have crushed when you realized how much you love him. And you know you are such a coward because you don’t say the words you should say even when he’s dead.

Until suddenly he can hear you, until enough of his brain knits together for him to take a breath. You’ve held him like this before, he’s died enough on patrol protecting your sorry ass from a bullet that you know the moment he can hear you and comprehend. 

And he throws himself off the fucking roof.

You reach for him and can’t catch him; it’s like all the grip from your hands are gone, the webs lost their power, and you flinch when he hits the ground. You stare over the side. You’ve never, ever dropped him before. You are the worst, the worst person ever for him. You love him and you’ve killed him twice in one night because you are the stupidest, most worthless friend in the world, because you know you should have said something months ago.

You scream your pain and anguish to the night sky, yanking the mask back on, and fling yourself off the other side of the building. You freefall, letting the wind rush past, longer than normal, until finally you send out a web and catch on the side of a building, feet skimming the ground at the lowest part of your arc.

For the first time since a spider bit you in a lab, swinging through the air brings you no joy.

You stay away for two miserable months. Two months of watching the damage get worse. Of watching a body count start. Two months of staying away and giving him space while your heart melts, while you cry without warning in the middle of lab work, while you break the bones of criminals and leave far more people unconscious than you ever have before. Two months of waking alone every night and never smelling pancakes cooking. Never finding him passed out, healing on your bedroom floor after crashing through your window. 

Until you see him, eating on a rooftop, and you are swinging to him before you can stop yourself. And there’s no warning from the spider-sense, which leaves you shocked when Deadpool pulls a gun and points it at your face, never pausing in his dinner. Not even turning around to look at you.

You swallow.

“I – I – there’s been a lot of bodies, W-Deadpo-Wade.”

It doesn’t waver.

You wonder if he actually starts to pull the trigger if you’ll have any warning, or if your spider-sense will stay quiet, never believing Wade could hurt you until you’re dead.

But of course he can’t. You’re the one who hurt him.

“I get you – you – gave up on me. I get it. But please, please don’t give up on yourself.”

You take a breath, and wait, but there’s nothing, so you swing away. Intent on leaving him alone.

But you can’t. You know you are the absolute worst but you can’t; living without him is killing you. Everything in your apartment reminds you of him, without rhyme or reason. And so the next time you see him you go to the roof he’s on, ready to try to talk again, but he just shoots himself in the head in front of you. 

Again.

And again.

And again.

Your nightmares are full of the sounds of gunshots and spray of Wade’s blood and brains. 

He never says a word. You might miss that the most; the banter, the wordplay. The innuendo and the outright obscene offers. The crude and crass comments that accompanied every patrol. His silence is contagious, until you are choking on words you can’t say. Until every time you stop a robbery you are silent as the grave. Muggers whisper to police that you are too quiet, as noiseless as the dead. 

You wake every morning with the taste of blood in your mouth, choking on your nightmares. Drowning in pools of viscera. It would hurt less if he’d just thrust a katana through your heart.

Until finally one night when NYC is looking particularly ratty and desperate with clouds overhead and puddles from the rainstorm that passed through you see him sitting on the edge of a rooftop and you land as softly as you can as close as you can behind him. He still knows you are there, pulling the gun to his head, but you are faster, throwing yourself down, catching his wrist with your hand, putting your masked cheek to his. You guide the weapon to your head, pressing the muzzle into your skull. You can feel him tense, trying to pull away, and you wrap yourself around him, whispering, “If you die, I fucking die too. Because I cannot keep living without you.”

He makes a keening, broken sound in his throat, the first real sound from him you’ve heard in months, and suddenly you are shouting at him. “C’MON WADE! DO IT! I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE AND NEITHER CAN YOU! SHOOT US DAMN IT SHOOT US I’M NOT LIVING ANYMORE WITHOUT YOU AND I CAN’T WATCH YOU FUCKING DIE ONE MORE TIME SO SHOOT US, FUCKING SHOOT US-“

“I LOVE YOU,” He screams, the sound cutting through your raving, and suddenly his grip on your other hand is as brutal as the hold you have on his, keeping the gun to your head, and he pushes with his legs, toppling you both from the building. 

Freefall.

How many times have you both fallen from a rooftop, from a bridge, your webs keeping you both safe? How many times has he been on your back like you’re on his right now, him trusting you to catch the next building? How often has Wade put not his life, but his pain in your hands? Because the fall won’t kill him but he’ll still feel the pain, and he’s trusted you over and over not to drop him.

God, you are the absolute worst.

You let his hand go, and he pulls the gun from your heads. Even now, you realize he’s not shooting you. He’s not killing you. Hell, you’ll land on him. It might keep you alive, even if he dies again, and the thought is so painful you want to scream, but you’re falling too fast. 

You reach, flinging out your free arm, knowing this is going to hurt, and feel the webbing catch. The jolt wrenches your arm, yanking your shoulder out of alignment, and you both slam into the wall, sliding down it until you hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud, but you’re both alive, and you gulp in air, sobbing.

You both sit there, hard on the ground, catching your breaths and assessing the damages done. You can’t move your right arm and you’re pretty sure your ankle is sprained. Wade is groaning, the sound pained, and you wince. When he stands, he picks you up by your throat and slams you into the wall. Rips the mask off your face and then his off of his own face. “I hate you,” he snarls, narrowed eyes locked on yours as you gasp for breath. Slams you into the wall again. “I hate you,” he says again. His fingers loosen enough to let you breathe.

“I – I hate you too,” you cough, gasping for air. Everything hurts and you can’t tell if it’s the fall, the slamming, or just your heart is shattered into too many shards to ever put back together.

“I hate you,” he says again, sounding as broken as you feel, and pulls your chin up, kissing you, hard and insistent. His eyes stay locked on yours as he pulls back. “Fuck, I cannot fucking stand you right now,” and he’s kissing you again, and this time you kiss him back, sinking into his embrace, shaking with release of it, the wanting of it. Your bodies pressed so close you can feel his ribs reforming through his suit, feel his thigh straightening out from where the fall crumpled it. Feel his hands roam along your body, spandex hiding nothing from him. And then you scream into his mouth as he snaps your shoulder back into place.

“Dammit Wade that fucking hurts,” you whimper. His fingers run through your hair, once, twice, then catch, pulling painfully. 

“You’ll live, damn you,” he whispers, shaking you by your hair. “And dammit, so will I.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much the first story, just Peter's POV. And a little extra at the end. I still went for that...vague ending, even though you get further in this one than in Wade's POV.
> 
> There will be one more part to this, but I'll spare you all the 2nd person POV in that one, I think.


End file.
